Pedro Neto Scores Hat-Trick as Chelsea Deliver Liam Rosenior with Happy Return to Hull

Amid freezing rain, snow, and a swirling breeze from the waters of the Humber, alongside a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s work for the visitors.

"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I’m delighted with the display," the manager stated. "This club is very special to me so it was great to get a good reception from both sets of supporters. The application of the lads was excellent."

Liam Rosenior holds this city dear to him, considering some of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Championship club. His positive association continued with a commanding performance from his squad, who ultimately strolled into the next round of the famous old competition.

Deadly Edge Secures Comfortable Win

Seventy-two hours after surrendering a two-goal lead in the league, there was a hint of fragility about them going into this intriguing cup clash. The packed home crowd clearly sensed it too, but the London side navigated the challenge with ease.

The manager made alterations, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The match might and maybe ought to have been decided long before it actually was, with two the Brazilian winger and the forward guilty of spurning excellent opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the first half.

However, luckily for the visitors, Pedro Neto was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He broke the deadlock with a marvellous distance effort, which proved to be the catalyst for his team to take command of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had four, with Neto scoring three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

Delap's Redemption and Influence

The home side showed plenty of fight all game, but the better opportunities always fell to the visitors. The winger ought to have opened the deadlock when he rounded goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably shooting over. The striker then had a similar horror incident in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a Phillips's clearance which came back from the bar, and he started to celebrate thinking the ball had gone over the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had responded to clear the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely influential from that point onward, registering 3 assists. The first was for the first goal as his pass teed up Neto to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the restart, it was two as Neto's set-piece went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Tie Put Beyond Doubt and Attention Turns

Soon after the second, the tie was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from the forward laid on his teammate to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then completed his treble as Delap once again delivered the decisive ball for the striker to coolly slot past a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, the work Hull had done in the opening half-hour had been forgotten. Their priority must now switch back to achieving a return to the Premier League under their manager, who left out a number of key individuals with that goal in mind.

"I think we earned at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a strong situation in the league," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next matches this can be a good lesson of how we should play."

Hull showed great effort to the end, and they almost claimed a consolation when a substitute struck a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another positive stride for their recently-appointed manager at a place he knows very well.

FA Cup History Look Good

That made for an in the end routine evening’s performance, and the cup competition omens are positive from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three previous times in this competition in the last decade and on each occasion, they have gone on to reach the final. Much still done in that regard, but this was another huge positive for Rosenior.